Some significant changes are being made to the Altona Community Development Corporation.

ACDC was formed in the mid-1990s and was directed by representatives from town council and the local business community with a mandate to encourage economic growth in the community.

Now that the SEED group has been created to fill that role, Altona town council has decided to change the focus of ACDC from economic development to community development.

"SEED has become our economic growth vehicle as a partnership with Rhineland Municipality and we simply felt that ACDC, as it currently existed, created some redundancy," said Altona Mayor Al Friesen. "We wanted to become more involved in areas that the SEED economic group would not be involved with and that's community development."

Friesen cited the community accessibility initiative, the community gardens project and the town's year-round curbside composting program as examples of how an organization like ACDC could partner with members in the community who are driving these initiatives.

"With the compost program, the push came from the community and we put some resources into it and are overseeing it, but the passion, the ideas, and expertise are coming from members in the community. That's what we're hoping will continue to happen."

The board structure is also being revamped to include all town council members only, which removes any community representation at that level.

ACDC administers a number of assets such as the former Manitoba Hydro building, the Tropi Gelato building and industrial park lots. Friesen explained some of that will be handled by the town's administrative team.

"We work closely with organizations like the RPGA Planning District and SEED and those organizations will pick up some of the slack, but ACDC as a corporation needs to be kept alive because it has the ability to hold assets and the administration of that will fall to our management team."